It is helpful to have your own set of poker chips if you want to learn
poker chip tricks.
Eventually it is nice to have the 11.5g clay composite
chips like the ones in casinos.
However, one can start with plastic chips and then
work up from there.

Gambling Posters
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Check out our gambling posters and prints including French Playing Cards and
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Poker Books
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Check out our reviews of different poker books including famous
authors like David Sklansky and Mike Caro.

Flourish Contests

Be sure to check our forum for the latest information on our chip trick contests and card trick contests.

Third Poker Cards Flourish Contest

Our third poker cards flourish contest ended on November 15, 2004. We received 3
nice entries with are presented below in alphabetical order:
Name: BaZ
Desc:
1st Card Playing Guitar.
There really isnít a trick to this. Itís me playing
guitar (badly) with a card.
2nd Bertram change
A trick I first saw on
http://www.21ace.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=591
One source is to learn it is
http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=617

The trick is a nice colour change that has a high
visual impact.
3rd Charlier Cut Control
A cut most of us learn first.
Is taught on 21ace at:
http://www.21ace.com/poker_card_tricks_charlier_cut.html

I decided to this with a count down to show it can be
an effective way to control a card that would usually
look like its lost in the pack. I can do this
blindfolded now, too many time I have a deck of card
in my hand waiting for a new round to start on CS.
Formula = Bad @ CS = Good at Charlier Cut Control

4th 3 False Cuts including Snap Cut (No idea what to
call it)
In short start the cut like you would for the Blind
Rotational Sybil (BRS). Rest you can catch from the
video(in slow motion to help).
Snap Cut, you just jump the middle pack and catch it,
cards just stay together in the air, just timing to
get them the right way. All I can say itís a knack.
I got the maining from Ryans Vid last contest:
http://www.robotace.com/vids/contest2/rlk7_FlourishContest2.wmv
Realised I couldnít do the BRS but I could do the
start so I used that.
The snap cut just looked cool

5th Classic Force
Taught practically every where
http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=642 for a
video I think I got it out of the Royal Road. Just
came natural. Here I just did it really quick to show
that you can easily mark a card and donít need a
person to pick it with their finger they can say stop.

Then speeded up the video putting down the cards that
say no because it was useless time and it looked cool.

6th 2nd To bottom deal and multi location centre deal

Cut the deck so the first ace is second to bottom,
then feel for the slightly out jogged cards in the
centre and pull them out. Canít reveal how its done
here Iím afraid. Inspiration:
http://www.virtualmagicshow.com/deals/

7th Move Card into a Charlier Cut.
Got this from Iansís CD BHMME
http://www.virtualmagicshow.com/bhm/
Slowed down for effect.

8th Air Control, boomerang throw into a Charlier Cut.
Was just throwing cards, after doing ĎMove Card into
a Charlier Cut.í
Fairly simple to work out

9th Russian Shuffle Trick
Got this one from
http://www.21ace.com/poker_card_tricks_russian_shuffle.html.
I know its been done to death but such a nice trick
and looks cool in slow motion.

10th Levitation
First no I am not holding a bar, or pressing myself
up on a desk. When I was younger I was hit my lighting
and control my weight at will. (not really but im not
telling you how its done) Added for a joke.

I tried to think of things besides the usual.
I don't know if I am really satisfied with what I came up with. I expected a little better than I did, but anyway, here we go.

I will try to credit and name each move. The person I credit may not have invented the move but they are who I learned it from....anywho...

I start out with a 4 chip coin star done in both hands at once.
(credit: David Roth) I think this is still one of the coolest chip flourishes.

Next I did a quick 5 chip rollout.
(credit: not sure...I saw someone do this in a vid after I knew the 4 coin rollout so it was quite simple to pick up)

After that I did the arm spreads/catches.
First one on the back of the forearm and caught with the other hand.
Second one on the front of the forearm and caught with the same hand.
Third one on the back of the upperarm and caught with the same hand.
(credit: ME on all 3...I have never seen anyone else do these.)
NOTE: you can notice the fake nude pic of Britany Spears on the pc monitor in the background.
This should award me a few extra points in the competition

Following that I do a front to back with a chip twirl with 4 chips. After the twirl I lock the 4th chip and toss to other hand and proceed to do a knuckle roll in the right hand while simultaneously doing the chip twirl with the other hand.
(credit: Front to back and chip twirl is David Roth. The toss...I can't remember if I did it first or saw in on the net first. The knuckle roll I learned from seeing it done in movies and on the net.

Back to some arm catches.
I do a 12 chip elbow catch with each arm and then six chips on each arm simultaneously.
(credit: I learned the elbow catch from my brother Jon probably when I was about 10 years old...Both arms at once ME...I have never seen anyone else do both arms at the same time.)

Finished up with a last minute thought I called the USA display.
It is a 4 coin rollout done with 12 chips using red, white, and blue for the colors. I believe I have done the rollout with 16 chips before but can't remember for sure. It get quite difficult once you get up to 12 chips...big hands will help with this one.

That's it for the moves.

Name: Chumpchange0001
Desc:
Hey this is my (chumpchange0001) chip trick entry
video for the 3rd flourish contest. I put a few of the
tricks i like to do together...It was hell trying to
get the file under 5 MB's when it was originally 200!
lol but i finally got it worked out. The video itself
is 91 seconds (1 over the limit) but i have two five
second title scenes at the beginning and end, so the
chip trick portion is only 80 seconds, if thats ok.

In the video i did (in order) the chip twirl
(multi rotational), front to back, then i did the
johnny chan 3 chip drop which i didn't like the way it
turned out but i used it anyways, and then i did the
bounce and spin back, 2 shuffles with 13 chips on each
side,the knuckle roll, the butterfly, the evelyn ng
trick where she picks up the chips (or something like
it), and then i finished with doing chip twirls and
the antonio the magician trick in both hands.
Name: CLM
Desc:
start off with a 2-part shuffle, which is just
splitting a stack of 16 into 4 stacks of 4, then
shuffling them all the way back together.
Next, I do a quick 4 chip display similar to the
butterfly but without a good opener, so its really
just a display.
Then, I do a front to back followed by two twirls,
pretty basic stuff.
The next move is a 3 chip variation of butterfly, with
a twirl closer.
The next trick is one I've been working on since I
joined 21ace...as you can see its still pretty slow.
Start with 4 chips..It's a front to top, where I
balance the first chip perpendicular to the top of the
3 other chips. I do a twirl with the remaining 3
chips while balancing the first chip on top. Then I
close the twirl and pull the top chip down to the
back.
The last trick is called metal detector, and it's just
a chip roll through a house of cards.
Hope you enjoyed my vid,

CLM
Name: Pocketman
Desc:
The first move is front to back wit thumb and index second it a chip twirl variation i saw some on try to put togther, theni do some basic chip shuffleing, Kunckle roll, then the Wascini Bounce with a knuckle roll variation i thought of. So here it is and thanks for haveing these comp. i think ima learn alot of thigns from this and hopefully progress with my skills.

Name: SleepWalkers
Desc:
K it goes stacks of 5 twice, stacks of 10 twice, Double cut twice into an aerial shuffle, chip twirl twice into a rollout into reverse, then stacks of ten two handed simultaneously twice, then stacks of twelve

Second Flourish Contest With Poker Chip Tricks and Poker Card Tricks

Our second flourish contest ended in the summer of 2004. We received 6 great entries.
I'd like to thank all 6 people who sent in videos for the contest.
The videos help the site a great deal as they give everyone ideas on
things to strive for with flourishes.
They are listed here in alphabetical order.

All 6 of the videos were great but BLaZE, Chipmaster and rlk7 took things to a new level
so they win the video part of the contest. Wrenn had the best description so he
wins the documentation part of the contest. Thanks again to everyone for
making this contest such a big success!

And thats it. Hope you guys enjoy. Sorry if you feel that I shouldn't be allowed the extra 30 seconds for my title and credits, I just felt that wouldn't count towards anything and it just makes me feel better about the finished product.

I'd like to give Dutch Boyd credit for the aerial chip trick. I learned that off of a post on these forums.

All other chip tricks were learned through this site and watching the pros.

The card tricks were first seen by me performed by David Blaine. They are all pretty basic manuevers that can be learned by skimming through the forums here, or google.

First of all I did a one coin routine which I put together, but which was inspired by Jay Sankey, some David Roth moves, Apollo Robbins, Shoot Ogawa, and some ideas from Bobo's Modern Coin Magic. The final vanish/reproduction is on Jay Sankey's coin video but it is in print in Bobo's book as well. One of the productions used is also like Jay Sankey's Waterwheel production but I do it a little differently and I used it for a different purpose than he does. Other than that, just basic vanishes are used.

With the chip tricks I just did applied card knowledge to chips. Kinda weird huh? Basically I did a couple flourishy cuts with a stack of 3 poker chips. The first one is based on Blind Rotational Sybil by Cap Casino, but its done with chips. The second cut is just a basic cut, sort of like a Trinary Cut, but not exactly the same. Then I just do a small overhand shuffle with the 3 chips.

The next portion is just a card vanish and reproduction. I really like this and just learned it quite recently from a couple magician friends.

On to the tougher stuff (for me anyways): With the cards I first do Blind Rotational Sybil, but it is my variation. I don't leave any of the pack in my left hand when I do it. Also, I have changed the ending which you can see in the video, by using a one handed fan, charlier cuts, and some other turn-over type moves. Next is the Harwin cut by Jonas Haglund. I think I spelled that correctly, but I may be wrong. Then I do the Freak-Out Cut by Jonas also. After that I do a 4 Ace production which a friend of mine created. Lastly, I do a thumb fan and close the fan with one hand.

Hope you all enjoy my video and good luck with your videos.

The TuTone video shows some of the classic chip tricks that we discuss on the 21Ace forums.
There are Front to Back and Twirl variations done at different speeds with different numbers of chips.

This movie was shot with a small digital camera (not a movie camera, a still
shot type camera) which has the ability to make short ~40 second quicktime
movie files.

Unfortunately it doesnt have the ability to do things like focus
locking or fancy zooming during filming which is why the routine was done as
two takes. One for the first part zoomed right in on the fingers, then a second
take for the final section which required a wider zoom.

The two movies were then converted from the quicktime format to avi using
radvideo. Then combined using Windows Movie Maker.

The coins used are two Australian twenty cent pieces. They are ~2.8cm in
diamater. Slightly smaller than a US half dollar but roughly the same weight
due to being slightly wider. Larger coins would have made the routine more
effective but I dont normally practice with anything much larger for those
tricks in the video.

The trick list for the video is below. The names of the tricks are just names
I made up myself years ago when creating the old version of my coin
manipulation site (back in 1995 or so).

I doubt any of the tricks are original to myself. That said I did invent the
Top Flip, Bottom Flip, Spin Walk, Coin Swap Twist and T Balance myself and
have not seen anyone else do those tricks.

Most of the tricks should be self explanatory but here is a brief description
for the two more difficult ones. For more details consult my "soon to be
online one of these days when I get around to it" coin manipulation website ;-)

Coin Swap Twist
---------------

Start with two coins as if you are about to perform a Coin Twirl. Pull up the
outer coin with the thumb. At this point you could twirl the bottom coin with
the middle finger but instead place the middle finger agaisnt the inner side
of the bottom coin and slightly rotate it anticlockwise (looking down on the
hand) and roll the top coin down into the back of stack.

T Balance
---------

Start with two coins as if you are about to perform a Coin Flip (Front To
Back). Pull up the outer coin with the thumb as if you are doing the Coin Flip
but instead sto pthe coin flipping as it reaches the top of the bottom coin.
Catch it so that rests on the bottom coin and the index finger. Now push it
slightly towards the index finger and then slide it backwards while rolling
back the bottom coin until the bottom coin is centered over the ring finger
with the top coin held centered on top of it with the thumb. Remove all
fingers but the thumb and ring finger to display the balance.

Just in case my entry has a chance of being placed on the site there is
an error in one of the trick descriptions. I actually described the
wrong trick altogether. Here is the correct description. Woops ;-)

Coin Swap Twist

Start with two coins as if you are about to perform a Coin Twirl. Pull
up the
outer coin with the thumb. At this point you could twirl the bottom coin
with
the middle finger but instead place the middle finger agaisnt the inner side
of the bottom coin and slightly rotate it clockwise (looking down on the
hand).

Now grab the bottom edge of the top coin with the middle finger and pull the
bottom coin edge in towards the palm while simultaneously pushing down with
the thumb. The effect is that the coin should rotate 180 degrees and
land at the
back of the original stack.

First Flourish Contest With Poker Chip Tricks and Poker Card Tricks

We held our first flourish contest early in 2004.
The submission deadline was April 30, 2004 and the videos
were limited to 30 seconds or less.
The 3 videos from the contest being shown on this page are
all good quality. We should be able to learn from each of them.

Ryan and Ian Kendall won the contest with their videos on the right.
The videos are sorted by first name in descending order.
We'll be adding descriptions in time. The contest
discussion is in the
Flourish Contest Discussion Thread.

1st Flourish Videos

Video by Ryan(rlk7 in the forum)

Video by Ian Kendall

Video by Chris From LA.

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